Fear Itself

I've always understood that the point of terrorism is to establish an undercurrent or a haze of fear in its target. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a strategy that's worked pretty effectively for the Bushies, as well? There's a new National Intelligence Estimate out there, and here's lead-off sentence: "We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years." That's pretty scary. But wait, there's more:

As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.

We assess that al-Qa'ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups.

. . .
We assess that al-Qa'ida’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the US population.

So no matter whether we're afraid as a result of the terrorists themselves or of fear-mongering about the terrorists, doesn't the fact that we're afraid mean the terrorists have won?

And along those same lines, last night I linked to Think Progress's compilation of various mission statements about the Iraq invasion. One of those was to fight terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here. But the NIE claims that an attack is a possibility. If that comes to pass, does that mean that the Iraq conflict is a failure, too?

But in case you're not intending to take the NIE seriously, Kevin Drum links to a statement from counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke in an ABC News blog post:

"It's more about what it doesn't say than what it does say," says Richard Clarke, the former White House official who is now an ABC News consultant.

"What is left out of the version released publicly is the explicit statement that al Qaeda is back and has operations underway," Clarke says.

The 2006 version of the National Intelligence Estimate claimed U.S. efforts had "seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa'ida and disrupted its operations."

"That's no longer the case in 2007, and you have to read between the lines to understand how we have lost ground," Clarke says.

So it seems like perhaps there is something to fear. Too bad we've got an administration that is more comfortable fomenting that fear than addressing and attacking it.